


blow my lipstick on the back of your wrist

by i_was_human



Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Dark, Drugs, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, M/M, Self-Harm, Smoking, Starvation, a lot of topics are just discussed, lapslock, nobody is okay, same company au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:02:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26206117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_was_human/pseuds/i_was_human
Summary: "do you know how we got here?" minsoo asks, leaning across the table with that wild, horrific, daring grin on his lips. reckless abandon - so like the hazy boy in his memories - and he blinks, unsure of how to respond.feral."no."if only he could be so lucky.
Relationships: Im Youngjoon | Young J/Kim Daehyun, Kang Dongho | D.Min/Lee Minsoo
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	blow my lipstick on the back of your wrist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JamlessGenius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamlessGenius/gifts).



> maybe i shouldn't gift this, but i feel like i should
> 
> tough to say
> 
> as usual, mind the tags. this fic is tagged dark for a reason.

eighteen is too young to sign your life away, he thinks.

* * *

there's an inherent sort of trap with companies like this - an inherent hole with slippery edges that he can't claw his way out of - and _oh_ , he doesn't know how to exist without this anymore, without this monitoring and scheduling and _fakery_. 

fakery being the key word, because really, who is he anymore?

he sits in the stylist's chair, staring at his reflection, and he doesn't recognize himself - doesn't recognize the twenty-something being styled by women with cloying perfume and acrylic nails, meaningless tittering spilling from their lips and filling the silence. 

"you would look so nice with just a bit of work done," one of them tells him, and a bit of hysteria bubbles up in his throat, because it's never _been_ "just a bit" and he never seems to look "so nice", not with his slanting eyes and too-long nose and imposing figure.

he's never going to look like the pretty boy they want him to be, like sa1nt are, and the thought sticks in his throat and _chokes him_. 

acrylic nails caress his cheek, the smell of fake perfume invading his nose, and one of the stylists presses a kiss to his lips, rough and messy.

"authentic," she calls it.

he doesn't know another word for it.

there was, once. there was one years ago, one perhaps in 2010, when he didn't know what he was signing up for. back before the sheet music and notebooks went under his bed, lest they be confiscated and destroyed, back before the company cut him off from his family and friends and put a microphone in his hand and demanded he be the best.

he's the best, but he doesn't know what else he is.

"you look nice," the stylist finally states, and there's the omnipresent "but you could look better" that leaves an acrid taste in his mouth. never spoken, never clarified, but always lingering - just like the company's reach.

he stares at his reflection, at the cherry-red lipstick smeared over his lips and the black hair messed like someone's been running their fingers through it, and he hates it.

* * *

when he walks out of the convenience store, it's with a pack of cigarettes.

kyunghun leans against the wall, one perched between his lips, and as he watches, the younger man exhales a cloud of smoke into the air, caramel eyes coated with the familiar haze of nicotine.

"you shouldn't smoke so much," he says, like every night, and kyunghun stares at him, pressing the cigarette to his lips once more.

"they should give us a phone," the man simply replies, exhaling another cloud of smoke into the night air. "a driver's license. permit. what the fuck ever."

but no, they both know - that's personality. that's a human outside of the stage mask, and for xr, that isn't allowed.

"kyung-"

"give me the fucking cigarettes, hyung."

he tosses them over.

kyunghun tucks the box into his back pocket and exhales once more, the smoke turned translucent under the streetlight. "you're going to lecture me about how it's bad for my voice."

yes.

"what if i don't give a fuck, hyung?"

"you should," he replies, like he does every night, and kyunghun shrugs, taking another drag.

"should," he finally replies, "but i don't. don't care about anything, really."

another exhale.

"'m not paid to."

* * *

there's never any giving kisses with dongho, he thinks.

it's always _stolen_ \- stolen from their briefest moments without monitoring, stolen stolen stolen when xr's all-seeing eye shifts just long enough for them to have _something_.

and oh, he thinks, dongho's so different from who he was, so plastic, so manufactured, so _fake_ , but for the briefest of moments when his eyes glaze over, he can pretend like dongho's the person he fell in love with, the person he lost himself to in the shitty beds in their trainee's dorm, the person with the slanted eyes and the too-long nose and the notebooks hidden under his bed.

he's not, though.

he hasn't been that person for a long, long time.

and, he thinks, he hasn't been himself for a long time either.

hasn't been minsung's brother, hasn't been a child, hasn't been able to dance without it being watched since he was sixteen, and now he's twenty-something and held down by so many chains he can't see where a single one ends.

dongho cages him in with his arms, and his hair hangs in his eyes - styled, manufactured, _plastic_ , just like the rest of them - and their lips crash together, each one chasing something they're never going to find.

* * *

sometimes, he wonders how nobody notices his smile is plastic.

it's easy enough to switch languages, keep up the facade, _english-korean-english-korean_ , but fuck if he isn't so tired of it. fuck if he isn't going to chase whatever gratification he can get in the form of small packets of white, fuck if he isn't going to let himself fly before the world pulls him back down.

kyunghun exhales next to him, clouds of smoke forming a cloud around his head, and he leans his head back, gaze fixed on the plastic sky. it's too warm in the filming set, warm and plastic and fake, and he can feel his skin sticking to the stage outfit, hot and thoroughly uncomfortable.

"want a hit?' kyunghun asks, and he shakes his head, eyes drifting shut.

kyunghun. such a good hyung, this one - not like minsung, wrapped up in ideologies and fake happiness. he knows how plastic this is, knows they're dolls made to be posed and act out stories and dressed and touched how they wish (they being the company - their eyes all-seeing, always) and kyunghun acknowledges that and chases his own form of pain.

it's lovely, in the sickest sort of way.

unfortunately, nicotine isn't his choice of poison, so he shakes his head once more for clarification, the movement doing nothing to dislodge the strands of hair sticking to his forehead. he's floating, just a bit, floating enough to be comfortable but present enough to not be, and he puzzles over that for a moment before reopening his eyes.

it's hot in the filming set - million dollar company too cheap to buy fans - and he exhales, a bit of drool rolling down his lips.

"cheer up, hyunjinnie," minsung states, and it's more of a command than anything - _i don't care what you have to do, but cheer the fuck up_. "it'll get better later."

no, it fucking won't.

he knows that, and minsung knows that, and everyone in this fucking trap of a company knows that.

it doesn't get better unless you're dead. 

honestly, he thinks, that sounds kind of nice.

* * *

whenever he meets his brother these days, it's ultimately pointless.

they never ask what they mean to - minsung never asks _"are you okay"_ and _"what's wrong"_ and _"can you ever forgive me"_ and he never asks _"how do you cope"_ and _"i want an out"_ and _"how do i love someone who doesn't exist anymore"_ and they carry on banal conversations about nothing in particular, empty words floating through the space between them.

minsung asks if he's seen the new game out, and he says yes, they're sponsoring it. minsung's lips quirk into some cracked rendition of a smile, and he rests his chin on perfectly manicured hands (he stopped biting them, stopped having any agency over his body long ago) and tells him he's proud of how far he and his group have come.

he nearly laughs at that.

pride isn't the word he would use, after all.

"you're doing well," minsung states, gaze drifting to the windows, and it's almost comical - the two of them in a run-down diner in the deepest part of seoul, and even here, they know they're being watched. "you're doing very well."

the words come out like he's being forced to say them, and, he supposes, he is.

* * *

_"you are not in control of your body."_

it would've been nice to know that before signing the contract, he thinks.

it's smeared over his wrist - lipstick from some woman's lips - and he smiles, harsh and brittle, as he wipes it onto the fabric of his pants.

the managers call it fundraising.

he's not sure what he'd call it.

red hair's a beacon here - everyone wants to say they kissed _the wyld_ \- and that must be why prices are so exorbitant, why he's so sought-after, the playboy of the rich and affluent, to be trotted out when they need him and put back in his little box when they're done.

he wants to scrub his skin off.

some nights, he tries to - red hair, red swirling down the drain - and then minsoo will catch his wrists, gaze dull and pleading and hundreds of levels of hypocrisy, and he offers him a false smile and a promise they both know is empty.

another woman saunters up to him, plastic, manufactured, and _isn't it cute_ , he thinks, _that he imagines himself to be anything but?_

in the truest form, ahn jaewon is dead.

whatever he is now is little more than a shambling, empty husk, to be trotted out like a party animal and returned to a cage. 

his body is not his own.

his mind is only slightly more free.

"you're even prettier in person," the woman breathes, and he wishes they'd dispense with the pleasures so he can go home and claw himself until he bleeds. "stunning."

lipstick smears, and he wipes his lips once more, red imprinting on his wrist.

it's hard to tell the lipstick apart from the scars, some nights.

* * *

creative liberty is free agency he's never been granted.

it's all about singing what they say to sing, dancing what they say to dance, and years of conditioning have beaten any modicum of fight out of him - and _"aren't you lucky,"_ they always say, _"lucky to be chosen, lucky to be here, lucky to be debuted and have all this money spent on making you pretty."_

perhaps in the right light, he's pretty.

perhaps in the right light, he always could've been.

but no - he looks _oh so nice_ with just a bit of work done, looks _so so nice_ like this, a flawed doll returned to the factory, but _not quite enough - how would you feel about one thing more?_

that's the fun part - the illusion of choice.

he's well aware he has no say in the matter. it's happening whether he wants it to or not.

but the illusion of choice makes him complicit, and he always says yes.

what right does he have to complain about it then?

the only time he feels like more than some plastic doll is when he's with minsoo - stolen moments, illegal moments, moments that can't mean anything more - when minsoo's nails score lines down his back and his teeth dig into his lower lip. when minsoo makes him _feel something_.

but feelings are superfluous.

this, he knows well.

* * *

if he gave an iota of a shit, he'd've amped it up long ago.

the gum sticks to his teeth - wrong in all the right ways - and he blows a bubble, the motion nowhere near as fulfilling as the harsh burn he gets from exhaling smoke, but existing nonetheless.

much like him.

not burning. not making a difference.

simply existing.

once upon a time, he might've been some sort of fire. might've been something to set a flame, a match, a torch, a bonfire.

now, he's ash.

ashes to ashes, dust to dust - he aches for nicotine. the filming's dragging on too long, and his nails dig into his jeans, the craving gnawing at the back of his mind.

he doesn't want to feel.

he wants to feel everything.

his words burn on the way out - not the comforting burn of smoke, but something harsh, broken, jagged pieces of broken glass leaving his mouth - and his lips curl into a cracked windowpane smile, something shattered long ago.

interviews are such a trite affair.

nothing they say is the truth. the interviewers ask empty questions and they give empty answers and the whole affair leaves him feeling so _empty_ he aches to be filled by smoke.

it's a manageable addiction, in the sense that it makes it easier to manage him.

carrot on a stick. he's reduced to an animal to be goaded along.

in some ways, that makes it better.

* * *

daehyun is so small, he thinks - so small despite being so tall.

he's pure in a way this place doesn't permit, safe and sweet and kind in a way he's not accustomed to seeing. the thing about this place - the truth that always has been - is that any emotions are extra, unnecessary, because the best actors _don't_ have emotions, so they have to learn to pretend they do. 

but daehyun's all sugary smiles and angel halos, and he seems to genuinely care to a measure nobody's ever afforded - icarus, soaring oh-so-high - and he dreads the day he'll fall.

he waits, and he waits, and he watches as this place breaks down the rest of the newly-debuted group - losing themselves to watching eyes and plastic and intoxicating red lines - but daehyun keeps moving, keeps smiling, like the untouchable angel he is, and fool he himself is, he falls for him.

is daehyun icarus, or is he the sun?

both, he later thinks, capturing daehyun's lips in a searing kiss and running his fingers through already messy hair. daehyun is a shooting star in the worst of ways - hot, burning, _brilliant_ , but leaving only destruction in its wake once he hits the ground.

daehyun is careening towards the ground, and he's the impact site.

"i love you," daehyun whispers one night, one night where they're tangled up in a shitty hotel with shitty aliases and nothing but their breaths between them. "i love you, youngjoon-ah."

the words stick in his throat.

love's never something they've been able to afford.

it's dangerous, and daehyun knows it.

 _"come with me,"_ his eyes say, wide, pleading, desperate. _"fall with me."_

and he can't give him an answer.

but then daehyun disappears after that night, and the next time he sees him, he's dull and washed-out and broken, blond hair limp and dark eyes empty, and he can't bring himself to ask or talk to him or do _anything_.

there's no room for love within these walls.

* * *

he clasps his hands in his lap and thinks. 

he lost himself somewhere between the ages of eleven and twelve, personality traits turned into a caricature. candy, confidence, fashion, styling, _the adorable youngest_ , and the name makes something sit in his stomach, hot and coiling and _angry_.

he's both grown beyond that scared child and never been given the chance to.

oh, but he's a good actor - been acting longer than he hasn't - and even when his feet ache and his eyes burn and he wants nothing more than to sleep and never wake up, hyunjin's there with a bag and a laugh and a manic sort of glee, and he wonders when the day will come that he'll be able to refuse.

he's so, so tired.

he's only allowed to have sweets when it's for the camera, only allowed to eat when it's necessary, and those big clothes hang off his frame - small, slender, waifish - making him look much, much heavier than he is.

he can't remember the last time he weighed more than a hundred pounds.

slowly, slowly, he's been wasting away, and nobody noticed or cared.

he doesn't care about them either, though, so.

it's fitting.

he paints his face in his own clown makeup each morning, paints it in shades of tan, brushes his hair until it almost shines, and tries to ignore the way skeletal fingers shake around the brush.

* * *

there are things worse than pain, he learns.

there are things worse than having to dance on a broken ankle, things worse than the petty concerns he'd whine to his hyungs about. 

there are things so much worse.

and he stands on his broken ankle, and he _fucking learns_ , because incompetence isn't something they can let slide, and _disobedience_ isn't something they can let slide, and he keeps his distance because he's _fucking scared_. 

occasionally, dongho will stare at him with dull brown eyes, and he can delude himself into thinking there's a bit of pity there.

as it is, he's wrapped up in himself - all of them are - and trying to keep his head above water when sinking under sounds _oh so enticing_.

and yet-

that artificial concept known as _love_ still rears its sickening head when he passes youngjoon in the hallways, demons clawing at his heart and emotions howling in his mind, and he tries to forget, he _tries_ , but there's not enough.

there will never be enough to forget.

 _improper_ , he knows, _punishable_ , he _knows_ , and he doesn't exist in a vacuum - doesn't exist independent of his hyungs - and dongho's pushed to be pretty and minsoo's pushed to be better and jaewon's dragged along for the sick, twisted ride, and he, deluded, idiotic he, saw none of it.

what a fucking fool he was.

his guitar sits in the corner of the room collecting dust, and in his wildest fantasies, he imagines playing it. imagines going out and busking, imagines playing with dongho, the man's face a hazy form in his mind, because he doesn't know who dongho is underneath all the surgeries and instructions and forced smiles, but, he thinks, it's a person he'd like to know.

he only has the faintest idea of who he is.

that person is tied to the guitar, though - drawing meaning from meaningless objects - and he stares at it, stares at the strings and body and neck, and thinks.

it, like him, is meaningless. pointless. a trick to be pulled out when needed and thrown back into the dungeon when necessary.

that's all they are, most days.

free thoughts are a luxury, not a right.

* * *

"do you know how we got here?" minsoo asks, leaning across the table with that wild, horrific, daring grin on his lips. reckless abandon - so like the hazy boy in his memories - and he blinks, unsure of how to respond.

feral.

"no."

if only he could be so lucky.

**Author's Note:**

> i actually thought this fic might be too dark to post, but i wrote it in two hours while listening to daydream on loop, and i thought it was nice enough
> 
> fic title from collin selman's daydream
> 
> [twit](https://twitter.com/i_was_human_) | [lit fic discord!](https://discord.gg/CNunB74)


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